


Survivor's Guilt

by dallaswlnston



Category: Lost Souls - Poppy Z. Brite, Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Tragedy, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Nothing, Bisexual Steve Finn, Childhood Trauma, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lesbian Character of Color, M/M, Multi, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma, Trans Sam Winchester, Traumatized Dean Winchester, Traumatized Sam Winchester, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 14:31:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17899904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dallaswlnston/pseuds/dallaswlnston
Summary: I get by with a little help from my friendsI get high with a little help from my friendsGonna try with a little help from my friendsSometimes family is a teenage girl, two monster hunters, and a god older than time itself. Other times it's a group of punks fighting like hell to survive.Or the one where everyone is gay and in need of therapy.





	Survivor's Guilt

**Author's Note:**

> so this story has literally been a DECADE in the making so believe me when i say its a work of love!! some things you should probably known before reading: Hope is bisexual and so is Dean, and Sam is a trans guy. They're all traumatized in various ways, but i promise it wont get too graphic. still, i wouldnt want anyone to be triggered so read the tags and proceed with caution!! also the lost souls universe comes in to play A LOT LATER so dont hold your breath bc itll be a long while before those characters are introduced. finally, this story really is Hope's journey so if youve come here purely for Dean and Sam you might be disappointed.

 

 

 

_“Find her,” Castiel ordered, his voice firm. “Before anyone else does.”_

  


 

Hope Goodchild was many things, but popular wasn’t one of them.

Garden Springs was a small town of yuppie, nuevo riche mini-mansion owners and their snobby, self-obsessed children. Set only a stone’s throw away from the main city, Plattsville, the aforementioned zombies would leave their perfect homes and commute to Plattsville for work or high-end shopping, then come back to pick their children up from St. Anthony’s, Garden Springs’ only school, which educated grades kindergarten to twelfth, or patronize the coffee shop, the general store, the McCutchen library, or the public pool, which looked more like a small-scale water park than a hole in the ground. To a hipster capitalist blogger it must be heaven, but to Hope, it was hell.

Every small town has the outsider, the freak, and that was Hope. She was so hated by the town that not even her beautiful _Stepford_ parents could save her reputation, but God knows they tried to make up for it. Marie Goodchild was on the PTA, volunteered at the local Catholic church whenever she could, and was the hostess of the neighborhood book club, which every snooty soccer mom in the vicinity attended. Clark Goodchild, however, looked and dressed like a 1950s fashion illustration with his neat black hair and square jaw. He worked in Plattsville as a copyright lawyer, a job which paid enough that Marie never had to lift a finger her entire life. His career is what afforded the Goodchilds a beautiful white McMansion straight out of _Better Homes and Gardens_. However, this was almost the same situation of everyone else in Garden Springs, so it didn’t give them many bragging rights.

Why was Hope, daughter of _Mr. and Mrs. Brady_ ostracized then? Well, her love of black, gothic literature, and music that was more screaming than melody didn’t help … much, but the near biblical hatred this town harbored was more than skin, or makeup, deep.

When Hope was ten years old, she told the school counselor her father had raped her.

That was the snowball that started it all.  
  


 

+++  
  


 

“So, Cas wants us to find a vessel?” Sam asked, looking at Dean skeptically from the passenger seat.

“Look, all he said was there’s some rugrat with a god inside her head,” Dean replied gruffly as he turned into the highway. “Said she’s in trouble. Apparently this girl is worth a lot, and she’s got a target on her head. We gotta find her before anybody else does.”

Sam drew his brows together, wondering how a teenage girl managed to be a godly vessel in the first place. “Who’s looking for her?”

Dean shrugged. “Demons, mostly, but Cas said if he knows about it, then he wouldn’t be surprised if all the other _flying monkeys_ do too.” He scoffed, obviously pleased with his joke.

Sam rolled his eyes, but smiled at Dean anyway. “Where’s she located?”

“Garden Springs, Colorado,” Dean replied. “Had to look it up. Dude, more people went to our high school than live in this town.”

“Dean, we went to, like, _five_ different high schools.”

“ _Shut up_ .”  
  


 

+++  
  


 

Hope’s bedroom was dark and cavelike, just how she wanted it. The walls were lined with posters of bands clad in skin-tight black clothing or photography prints, and the decent-sized room seemed crowded by the two large bookshelves, king bed, and simple desk. Clothes, makeup, and various odds and ends were scattered around the room. Having rich parents had its perks, and one of them was being able to buy anything you wanted with Daddy’s credit card.

It was her bedroom where she was now, nose-deep in a book about animal taxidermy. She found the subject intriguing, and wondered if she’d have the stomach to do it. She knew it would drive her father mad, but that only made her more eager to try.

She heard a ringing then, and closed her nearby laptop which played a song by _Christian Death_ , silencing the music. Another ring sounded through the house. It was the doorbell.

Confused as to why anyone would be here when her parents weren’t home, she walked downstairs and up to the front door. Looking through the peephole, her confusion only grew as she saw two men she had never seen before. One was almost awkwardly tall with shaggy brown hair and broad shoulders. The other, shorter and with lighter hair, looked like a masculine James Dean, wearing a plaid flannel shirt and day-old stubble. They weren’t from Garden Springs; they looked too real, too imperfect.

 _Open the door_ , Eloah whispered to her, seeing the world through Hope’s eyes. _They won’t hurt you. I know their type_.

An image of every home invasion movie flashed in Hope’s mind, but nevertheless she opened the door just enough for the men to see her face. She looked at their shoes, scuffed boots, eye contact not one of her strong suits, especially with strangers. “Hello?”

“Hey,” The taller one said. He had a polite smile and kind eyes, but Hope could see the sadness in them when she risked a look. “I’m Sam, and this is my brother Dean. This is going to sound crazy, but we need to talk to you.”

Hope drew her brows together and almost shut the door, but Eloah, as if reading her thoughts, spoke up.  _Talk to them. Hear them out. I’m curious what they have to say._

“Talk to me? What are you, social workers? Doctors?” Hope asked. She knew they were absurd questions, these two looked more like mechanics than doctors, but it wouldn’t be the first time her mother had sent people to come for her.

“Look, we don’t exactly have time for pleasantries,” The shorter one, Dean, said, making Sam give him a look. “There are things looking for you, and we’re here to protect you from them. Is it true you’re in contact with a god?”

Hope froze, balking at the question. No one, not even the kids at school who hated Hope the most knew of Eloah. Only her parents and the doctors knew, but none of them believed her. They only labeled her schizophrenic and put her on anti-psychotics.

 _I knew this would be interesting_ , Eloah said with a chuckle. _Let them inside._

Hope sighed nervously and bit her lip, opening the door wider. “She wants me to let you inside,” She said by way of answer. “So, come in, I guess.” She backed away and the brothers, their eyebrows raised in surprise, followed suit and entered.

After shutting the door behind them, she led Sam and Dean into the living room, and motioned towards the couch, while she sat in a lounge chair opposite them. Her heart beat rapidly in her chest and she bit at her dark red nails, her anxiety spiking.

_Calm down, honey. They don’t look dangerous. Not to you, anyway._

  


 

+++  
  


 

Dean almost laughed when he saw the kid. She looked like Ally Sheedy in _The Breakfast Club_ fell into a _Hot Topic_ with her dark brown hair that fell limply past her shoulders and smudged black eyeliner. She was tall, but curvy, possibly even overweight, and she had wide green eyes that seemed permanently glued to the floor, a sheepishness that made her look like she was one stiff breeze away from a panic attack. She was a kid. A kid with a god in her head apparently, but a kid nonetheless.

He walked with Sam into the house and couldn’t believe a girl like that lived in a place like this. _Punky Brewster’s_ parents must be loaded.

As he sat down, he noticed the girl was teetering on the edge of a freak out, and he offered her a small smile. “Why don’t we start with your name?” He said.

She looked up at him, those wide eyes of hers making her seem years younger. “Hope,” She said softly. “Who are you guys anyway?”

“We help people who come in contact with things … not quite human,” Sam answered.

“Hunters,” Dean said with a proud smile. “We take out the monsters before you turn into a _Lunchable_.”

Hope didn’t laugh, instead she looked at them skeptically. “I would say that’s bullshit, but there’s a god talking to me, so I can’t exactly judge your sanity,” She replied. “You said something’s looking for me. Why?”

Dean leaned forward, recalling his conversation with Castiel. “The god in your head,” He said. “Do you know what it means?”

“She’s not in my head,” She replied. “Eloah’s somewhere else, I’m just linked to her. Like we share a phone line. Everything I see or hear, so does she, and she can talk to me. She’s locked away.”

“Locked away?” Sam asked.

Hope nodded, looking down at her hands as she fiddled with the sleeves of her black hoodie. “A long time ago, she was captured, put away somewhere, like another dimension. She doesn’t have a body or anything, she’s just a consciousness now, but we’re linked,” She said. “I’m the newest one. She’s had someone like me since she was first captured. The connection starts the moment the person is born, and Eloah is just … with them. When the person dies, that same moment she connects to a newborn. She doesn’t know how it works or how to control it.”

Dean swallowed. This wasn’t like anything he’d ever heard of. “We were told you were a vessel, but this is different. Vessels possess their host, but you’re not possessed, are you?”

Hope shook her head, looking at Dean with a shrug. “Eloah said her connections, that’s what she calls people like me, that they can gain her powers. I … I have one of them.”

That’s was it. That’s why the demons wanted Hope. A human with god-like powers could come in handy, especially one as young and controllable as Hope seemed to be.

“What’s your power?” Sam asked, and Dean could tell by his face that he was curious as all hell. Little brother just loved shit like this.

Hope looked down again, as if ashamed. “You won’t believe me,” She said. “No one does, even when I tell them what I see. If I tell you, you’ll put me in the hospital, just like Mom did.”

“Hope,” Dean said, feeling for the girl. This wasn’t an act, she was scared, very scared. Dean remembered how that felt: to be sixteen and afraid of the world, and knowing monsters are real didn’t help with that. “Whatever you tell us, we’ll believe you, and we sure as hell won’t _Cuckoo’s Nest_ you.”

The girl sighed and reached out her hand. “Eloah says I should just show you,” She replied. “Touch my hand.”

Dean made a face, looking at Hope’s hand worriedly. “You’re not gonna … kill me, are you?”

Hope shook her head, looking reserved as if she knew she wouldn’t like what was about to happen. “It won’t hurt you.”

Hesitantly Dean reached out and took hold of Hope’s hand, but as soon as skin to skin contact was made, Hope gasped out and tried to pull her hand away, though her hold on Dean’s hand stayed firm, jerking him forward slightly. She looked up at the ceiling, tears spilling from her eyes as she sobbed silently. It had only been a few seconds since they touched, and suddenly Hope tore her hand away, holding it to her chest as if Dean burned her.

“I can’t,” She whispered, looking at Dean as tears rolled down her cheeks. She looked pained, her breath going in and out in short bursts. “I saw it all. I always see it, but this time- this time I _felt it_. Every stab, every burn, every break. So much pain, Dean. And Hell, purgatory … how are you sane after that? How have you not given up?”

Dean and Sam looked at each other, floored by what had just happened. “Wait, hold on,” He said. “Did you see _my life_?”

Hope nodded and wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, smearing her eyeliner even more. “That’s what I do,” She said, composing herself. “I touch you and I see everything. But this was different. I’ve never _felt_ it before. I felt it all.”

“You saw my entire life, even when I was in Hell?” Dean asked, wanting to believe it wasn’t true. It made him horrifically uncomfortable to know a sixteen year old girl had seen his whole life. “But it wasn’t even a second, how is that possible?”

“Eloah made it possible,” Hope said. “I used to not be able to control it, that was terrible. I was eight and I saw my mother’s whole life. Imagine that. I saw how I was conceived, saw that she married my father because he knocked her up, how she had to give up her life for him. She didn’t want me, you know, but Catholics aren’t exactly down with abortion.” She let out a sigh, shrugging softly. “At least then I understood why she hated me. She blamed me for her unsatisfying life. I tried to tell her about what I saw, and that my imaginary friend wasn’t imaginary, but a god. Ever since then she’s been afraid of me, trying her best to keep me locked away in psych wards, but my father … he’s never let me stay gone for more than a month or two at most.” She looked down at her hands, frowning angrily. “He wants me here.”

Dean didn’t know what to say. The girl was a talker, though, that was for sure. He couldn’t imagine how hard it must have been to have her power. Every secret, every private act, everything, all seen by her. He wondered how demons would find use for a girl with her kind of power. It would make gathering information easier and could be used to see if someone had lied, or if someone was faithful to the cause or a rat.

“It’s okay,” Sam said, in that soft way that meant he was concerned for Hope, wanting to calm her. “We’ll keep you safe. We’re staying at a motel about ten minutes from here, but we’ll keep a lookout on the house. Nothing is going to hurt you.”

Hope gave Sam a small smile then. “You know, you were a dorky looking kid,” She said, her smile growing. “But I would’ve been friends with you.”

Both Dean and Sam laughed, Dean laughing the hardest. When Dean quieted, he looked at Hope with a stern expression. “I still don’t like that you’ve seen my … everything.”

Hope looked at Dean pointedly. “You think _I_ like it? I had to witness every time you’ve puked. Not fun.”

“I’m sure that’s not the worst of it,” Sam said with a chuckle.

  


 

“We’ll keep an eye on the house,” Dean said as he stepped onto the porch. “But you have our numbers. Anything happens, you call us.”

Hope nodded. “You didn’t have to give me your numbers, I already knew them.”

“Stop _Vulcan Mind-Melding_ me!” Dean grumbled.

“Too late,” Hope said with a smile. “By the way, _Star Trek_ is boring, thanks for making me watch _every single episode_.”

“At least it only took a second,” Sam said. “Imagine it taking your whole childhood.”

Dean faked a laugh, giving Sam a look. “Let’s go, Sammy.”

Sam nodded and gave Hope a smile and a wave. “See you, Hope.”

“See you,” Hope replied, and shut the door.

Dean stepped off the porch, leading Sam to the Impala. He leaned back against it, looking at the doorway to Hope’s house. “So, what do you make of her?”

Sam shrugged as he stood next to Dean, hands in his pockets. “She’s a girl with a lot of baggage, that’s for sure.”

“I don’t think she’s playing with a full deck.”

Sam scoffed. “You think she’s crazy?”

“I think that god stuff is real, obviously, but c’mon, she’s definitely got mommy-issues and besides, how sane would you be after seeing people whole lives?”

Sam shrugged. “I don’t think that’s any of our business, Dean.”

“Whatever,” He said. “All I know is she’s vulnerable. It takes one sweet-talking demon and she’s gone. I don’t wanna see her go darkside.”

“Neither do I,” Sam replied. “What are we supposed to do about her anyway? We can’t just follow her around forever.”

Dean shrugged. “I don’t know. All Cas said was to find her and keep her safe. So, I guess we’re on bodyguard duty.”  
  


 

+++  
  


 

 _They seem nice_ , Eloah said. _Harmless._

“Lo, you know as well as I do that’s bullshit,” Hope said out loud with a smile. She laid on her bed, her knees up to support the laptop in her lap. “You saw Dean’s life same as I did. They’re good guys, sure, but they’re magnets for death and destruction. Not sure I want to dip my toe in that.”

_That Dean one is pretty, though. I like him._

Hope rolled her eyes as she scrolled through _Netflix_. “One, gross, he’s like fourty,” She replied. “And two, you’re useless.”

 _I’m older than existence_ , Eloah said with a chuckle. _Age means nothing to me_.

“I repeat, useless.” Hope said. She looked at the clock on her laptop then and sat up. It was half-past six p.m by now, meaning both her parents would be home. Her mother she didn’t care about, as long she stayed seen but not heard, Hope would be fine, but her father was a different story. Maybe if she stayed in her room, perhaps her father would magically forget about her existence. Maybe he had to work late, and wouldn’t be home until Hope was fast asleep. Maybe then he wouldn’t wake her up.

 _You’re freaking out again, aren’t you?_ Eloah asked. She was the closest thing Hope had ever had to family, her only friend. She had been what had kept her sane all these years. _Don’t. We can handle this, we have before._

Hope shook her head, setting down her laptop and pulling her knees to her chest. “I can’t take much more of this, Lo, I can’t,” She replied, tears beginning to blur her vision. “Just two more years. Two more years and I can move and go to college and leave this piece of shit town and my piece of shit family. I just want to be left alone. I don’t want to hurt anymore, Lo.”

_Shh, honey. It will be okay. Have you taken your meds today?_

Hope looked over at her bedside table where three pill bottles sat. One for depression. One for anxiety. One for psychosis. The anti-psychotics she didn't take. She had before, for a while, the doctors convincing her that Eloah and the things her parents did to her were really hallucinations, but that was then. Especially after today. Today she was believed, and she had seen a life which proved that Eloah must be real. She wasn’t crazy. At least, she wasn’t psychotic.

“No,” She answered weakly, wiping her tears with her shirt sleeve.

_Take them, Hope. They’ll help._

Hope nodded with a small sigh. She’d need a glass of water.

Taking a deep breath, she left the sanctity of her bedroom and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. The house was quiet, but that wasn’t surprising. Her father spent most of his time in his study, her mother either occupying the kitchen or the living room. It was as she opened the door to the fridge that her mother made her presence known.

“Sweetheart, is that you?” Marie called from the living room. Hope drew her eyebrows together. Her mother only called her pet names when she was either drunk or mocking Hope, and her tone sounded too pleasant for either to be the case. “Come here, your father and I want to talk.”

Hope felt her heart pick up pace. Her parents were hardly seen in the same room together unless out in public, and even then it was sparingly.

 _Don’t go in there,_ Eloah said. _I don’t know what it is, but it isn’t good._

Hope wanted to do what Eloah said and turn tail and run, but leaving would make her parents mad, and the last thing Hope wanted was a fight. Fear nearly seizing her, she pushed herself into the living room, where she saw her parents standing in the middle of the room.

“Hello, dear,” Clark said with a pleased smile. “How are you today?”

Staring at her parents like they were aliens, for the might as well be with how they were acting, Hope forced a confused smile. “I’m fine …” She said.

 _This isn’t good, Hope. Whatever this is, its bad. Leave now_.

“We were thinking,” Marie said with a _Martha Stewart_ grin. “Maybe you’d like to go on vacation with us. A nice family vacation. The three of us!”

“It’s … the middle of the school year,” Hope said, her confusion turning quickly to caution. Were they going to send her away to the hospital again? Or worse, would they take her to another city, another state, and leave her there? No, that couldn’t be it. Her father could hardly take a week away from Hope, let alone forever. “I can’t just miss class.”

“We’ll call your school and work everything out,” Clark replied. “How about Aspen? Or Paris?” His expression changed then to one of grim disappointment. “Why aren’t you excited? Don’t you want to go on vacation?”

Hope knew something was wrong. It was like her parents had been _Invasion of The Body Snatchers_ ’d. They were like robots, like wolves in grandma costumes.

With a strange courage Hope didn’t know the origin of, she straightened her back, staring down her parents. “I’m not going anywhere,” She said. “Not now.”

Her parent’s expressions turned to ones of anger and in a blink their eyes were black.

_Demons! Hope, run!_

Hope screamed as loud as she could, but as soon as she tried to run her mother, or the demon using her mother as a skinsuit, aimed her hand and suddenly Hope couldn’t move, her body being pulled forward by an unbreakable force towards her parents.

 

 

+++

  


 

“Six-thirty and still nothing,” Dean said with a sigh, looking through binoculars at Hope’s house. They were parked a few houses down, surrounded by the trash of tonight’s take-out dinner. He leaned against the seat, setting his binoculars on the dashboard. “Maybe demons haven’t found her yet. I mean, it's been hours and its radio silence. Most exciting thing was her parents coming home.”

Sam bit his lip, shaking his head. There was danger coming, he could feel it. “I don’t know, Dean. Cas wouldn’t send us unless its was urgent, right?”

It was then a single scream rang through the street, and Dean and Sam gave each other a look before jumping out of the car, guns in hand as rushed into the house.

Guns raised, they froze as they watched Hope plunge a demon blade into her mother’s stomach before slicing her father’s throat. The bodies flickered with orange from within as the demons died, then they fell to the floor with resounding thuds. Hope just stood, looking half terrified, half feral, blood-covered and gripping the blade like it was a life line, staring at her now dead parents.

Sam couldn’t believe what he had seen as he slowly lowered his gun, noticing from the corner of his eye that Dean was doing the same, his expression just as shocked as he bet his was. “Hope?” He said hesitantly. He saw the knife then, not your average butcher knife, but a demon blade. Where on Earth had she gotten one of those?

Hope turned to look at Sam, and he watched in horror as the corners of her mouth turned up into a smile of awe. “They’re dead,” She said. “I- I killed them.”

Sam glanced at Dean. He was right. Hope was cracked.

  


 

Dean pulled back the curtain to look out the front window. “Well, it’s been a half hour and no cops or neighbors,” He said, heading back into the living room. Hope was sat on the couch, knees to her chest, looking at her parents with that same smile. It skeeved Dean out. He knew he smelled crazy on her, and this confirmed it. It didn’t matter how in shock you were, no normal person smiled after killing their parents. No one.

“We’re lucky,” Sam said. He sat next to Hope with a cautious, worried expression. Fucking spaniel-hearted Sammy.

“Hope, what the fuck happened?” Dean asked, sitting on the coffee table in front of Hope, blocking her view of the corpses. He picked up the bloody demon blade and waved it slightly. “Where did you get this?”

Hope looked at the blade, her smile disappearing. “It came from you,” She replied with a small shrug. “They were acting weird, wanting to take me to Paris for a vacation. I said no and their eyes turned black. I knew from your memories that it meant they were possessed, and I knew about the demon blade from you too. My mother, or, you know, the demon, pulled me close and suddenly the blade was in my hand and I killed them.” She looked at Dean then. “I’ve wanted them dead my whole life and now … now it’s over. It’s all over. They can’t hurt me anymore.”

Dean swallowed at the last of Hope’s words. He remembered Hope alluding to her mother not exactly being mother of the year, but how bad must they have been for Hope to want them dead? “So, the knife just appeared in your hand?” He asked. “Magically?”

Hope nodded. “New power,” She said, looking down at her hands. “Eloah says its something she can do. She can create anything non-living out of thin air.” Her expression changed then, turning into one of fear. “You’re going to take me to the cops now, aren’t you? I’m a murderer, right?”

Before Dean could reply, Sam spoke up. “We’re not going to do that,” He said, and Dean gave him a look. What were they going to do, adopt the killer brat?

“Then- then what?” Hope asked, looking desperately at Sam.

“You’ll stay with us, we’ll figure everything else out later.

“Sam!” Dean interjected, looking at Sam in frustration.

Sam flinched, but didn’t look at Dean, instead reached out to touch Hope’s shoulder. Dean was half-expecting Hope to download his life like she had his, but he guessed her shirt sleeve acted as a barrier between their skin. “Go upstairs and pack a bag,” He said, his voice soft, even kind. Was Sam _bonding_ with her? “Only the essentials, okay?”

Hope nodded and stood, though her whole body seemed to tremble, and slowly walked away towards the stairs.

“Okay, what the _fuck_ , dude!” Dean whisper-yelled, standing up to wave his arms in frustration. “Did you just ask _The Bad Seed_ to move in with us?”

“Dean, calm down, I know what I’m doing,” Sam replied, standing as well.

Dean barked a sarcastic laugh. “Yeah, because I sure don’t!” He said. “You mind cluing me, your brother and current roommate, in on your _great_ plan?”

Sam gave Dean a pointed look as he crossed his arms over his chest. “She has nowhere to go, Dean, and she’s a godly vessel. What else are we supposed to do? We can’t exactly protect her if she’s in prison doing twenty-five to life!”

Dean frowned. “You really think we can trust her?” He asked. “What if she slits our throats in the middle of the fucking night!”

“Dean, she killed her parents because they were possessed,” Sam replied. “She’s only happy about it because they abused her.”

“And how do you know she was abused, _Dr. Phil_?” Dean scoffed angrily.

Sam sighed, uncrossing his arms. “When you were sixteen, didn’t _you_ want Dad dead?”

Dean clenched his jaw. Sam should know better than to bring up their father. He was long dead, and Dean would be happy to never think about him again. “Don’t,” He said sternly.

Sam scoffed. “Come on, Dean. You really don’t see it in her? No happy, well adjusted kid kills their parents with hesitation,” He said. “And the way she talks about them … they hurt her, Dean. I know they did. She has the same look on her face we did at her age.”

“Dad didn’t abuse us, Sam,” Dean replied, unable to look Sam in the eye.

“Yes, he did,” A soft voice interrupted.

Both Dean and Sam swung their heads around to see Hope standing at the bottom of the stairs with two large bags slung over her shoulder. Dean could see there were tears in her eyes and watched as they made tracks of murky black down her cheek from her eyeliner.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dean replied.

Hope set her bags down before slowly walking towards Dean, looking him in the eye. “I’ve seen your life, dummy, and Sam’s right. Your father abused you. Both of you. He pitted you against each other. He babbied Sam but also neglected him, and you. You he did a number on. He messed with your brain so much you can’t even admit what he did. Uncross your wires, Dean, because you know I’m right. You were never good enough, and every mistake cost you. He beat you, didn’t he?”

It took all the strength Dean had not to lose him composure, and his hands shook with it. Hope was right about all of it. His father was a worthless, obsessive drunk. He pushed Dean and Sam to the breaking point again and again. Dean was happy when his father died, even though he was also terrified. If your whole life is about being proving yourself to someone, what do you do with yourself when that someone is dead?

Dean managed to nod, and Hope sighed, biting her lip as she looked at the ground. “I promise I’m not going to hurt you guys,” She said. “I really don’t have anywhere else to go. Everyone in this town hates me and I don’t have relatives. My only options are stay with you or walk into a police station.”

“You’re staying with us,” Sam said, then looked at Dean. “Right?”

Dean took a breath as he realized that there were no secrets between him and Hope. She knew everything, even the things he’d never told Sam. A part of him was afraid of what that would bring, but another part saw a girl who had nothing and was desperate for kindness. For now, she needed a Bobby.

“Right.”


End file.
